No one has these cojones ... but everyone wishes they did :-)
My brother shared this link on Facebook, and I traced it through Google back to what I think is the original, which I share here ...
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World -- a YouTube star!
I recorded quite a bit of video of Savannah when I was in Winnipeg on holidays ... and I posted the first and best of these on YouTube tonight. She's so cute ... Nick provides the background guitar by just plinking away for fun ... but it's nice.
F70EXR and F200EXR -- test Large versus Medium size -- which is better?
The short answer is that medium is better ... in *all* circumstances.
Well ... if you shoot bright light all the time and very fine, but very high contrast details ... and you like to pixel peep at 100% ... then shooting HR mode might satisfy you now and again.
But for general purpose shooting without requiring of constant thought or the use of the battery-eating EXR AUTO mode, just shoot P mode with M size.
My test today is a pair of shots of a stack of books I have to file at some point ... I focused on the label and title of the Nelson DeMille book Wild Fire (good thriller by the way.)
I cropped the focus area first, since it is bright and should be quite close between the two ... I found in fact that the labels and text are more readable on the 5mp image that was upsized to 10mp than it was on the 10mp native image.
Those who have read my thoughts on this in the past know that I consider the HR mode to be evil ... it shows weird edge artifacts, no doubt caused be a combination of the rotated SCCD matrix, and the strange pixel-paired EXR arrangement of the colors. Between these two, they are performing some ugly math to get a simple image matrix. With the binned mode, we no longer have the pixel pairs, so we are back to the original SCCD demosaic algorithm, which we know works very well.
Added to the strange bayer mask, we have Fuji's selective noise reduction. At 10mp, the details are very fine, yet there are a lot of weird artifacts that no doubt look like noise to the jpeg engine. So Fuji tries to smooth the flat areas, which inevitably damages edges of letters etc. This is *very* obvious in these images.
Starting with the crops ...
Remember to click on these images to get the larger 800px versions. The crops show just how much cleaner the edges appear. Start with the words "Pix Reg." on the circular label. Perfectly clear on the upsized image, but the x is destroyed by edge artifacts in the 10mp native image.
Next, have a look at the spine of the book "Follow the Stars Home" by Luanne Rice, just below the book by Anne McCaffery and Jodie Lynn Nye (The Death of Sleep.) The title is discernible on the 5mp image while it is simply mush on the 10mp image.
The next crop down is the spine of "Light: Science and Magic", a superb book on artificial lighting, especially of difficult subjects like glass and mirrors. The word Light on the upsized 5mp image is crisp and clear while the 10mp images shows it weakly with a lot of grain. The fine grain has fooled some people to declare that edge definition is much better in 10mp mode ... this, of course, is obviously not true. In some very few cases, the 10mp mode can resolve a bit more high contrast detail, but there is *always* the price of chroma noise and edge artifacts along with smoothing of any low contrast details.
The final crop is the Harry Potter spine ... it shows poor definition on the author's name and it shows a lot of nasty chroma noise on the main part of the spine. The noise on the 5mp mode is mainly luminance grain ... a much more pleasant form of noise.
What I find really interesting is how these issues are subtly visible even at tiny web sizes. Showing the upsized image first:
It looks pretty good. Everything is crisp and clear. The 10mp image looks superficially similar ...
But now take a look at some of the crop areas. Also look at the title of the Stephen King book "The Stand" ... you will see that the title stands out clearly against the red background with the 5mp image, which blending back in (the result I believe of NR and edge artifacts combined) to make it harder to read on the 10mp image ...
I see no reason to *ever* shoot 10mp on the F70EXR or 12mp on the F200EXR ... every time I see a pair of images from these cams in the two sizes, the issues with edges and low contrast detail stick out like a sore thumb.
I realize that many people don't see this ... but train yourself to look for this kind oft thing ... it won't be long before you see the kind of improvements that make a big difference in your image's ability to convey 3 dimensions.
Well ... if you shoot bright light all the time and very fine, but very high contrast details ... and you like to pixel peep at 100% ... then shooting HR mode might satisfy you now and again.
But for general purpose shooting without requiring of constant thought or the use of the battery-eating EXR AUTO mode, just shoot P mode with M size.
My test today is a pair of shots of a stack of books I have to file at some point ... I focused on the label and title of the Nelson DeMille book Wild Fire (good thriller by the way.)
I cropped the focus area first, since it is bright and should be quite close between the two ... I found in fact that the labels and text are more readable on the 5mp image that was upsized to 10mp than it was on the 10mp native image.
Those who have read my thoughts on this in the past know that I consider the HR mode to be evil ... it shows weird edge artifacts, no doubt caused be a combination of the rotated SCCD matrix, and the strange pixel-paired EXR arrangement of the colors. Between these two, they are performing some ugly math to get a simple image matrix. With the binned mode, we no longer have the pixel pairs, so we are back to the original SCCD demosaic algorithm, which we know works very well.
Added to the strange bayer mask, we have Fuji's selective noise reduction. At 10mp, the details are very fine, yet there are a lot of weird artifacts that no doubt look like noise to the jpeg engine. So Fuji tries to smooth the flat areas, which inevitably damages edges of letters etc. This is *very* obvious in these images.
Starting with the crops ...
Remember to click on these images to get the larger 800px versions. The crops show just how much cleaner the edges appear. Start with the words "Pix Reg." on the circular label. Perfectly clear on the upsized image, but the x is destroyed by edge artifacts in the 10mp native image.
Next, have a look at the spine of the book "Follow the Stars Home" by Luanne Rice, just below the book by Anne McCaffery and Jodie Lynn Nye (The Death of Sleep.) The title is discernible on the 5mp image while it is simply mush on the 10mp image.
The next crop down is the spine of "Light: Science and Magic", a superb book on artificial lighting, especially of difficult subjects like glass and mirrors. The word Light on the upsized 5mp image is crisp and clear while the 10mp images shows it weakly with a lot of grain. The fine grain has fooled some people to declare that edge definition is much better in 10mp mode ... this, of course, is obviously not true. In some very few cases, the 10mp mode can resolve a bit more high contrast detail, but there is *always* the price of chroma noise and edge artifacts along with smoothing of any low contrast details.
The final crop is the Harry Potter spine ... it shows poor definition on the author's name and it shows a lot of nasty chroma noise on the main part of the spine. The noise on the 5mp mode is mainly luminance grain ... a much more pleasant form of noise.
What I find really interesting is how these issues are subtly visible even at tiny web sizes. Showing the upsized image first:
It looks pretty good. Everything is crisp and clear. The 10mp image looks superficially similar ...
But now take a look at some of the crop areas. Also look at the title of the Stephen King book "The Stand" ... you will see that the title stands out clearly against the red background with the 5mp image, which blending back in (the result I believe of NR and edge artifacts combined) to make it harder to read on the 10mp image ...
I see no reason to *ever* shoot 10mp on the F70EXR or 12mp on the F200EXR ... every time I see a pair of images from these cams in the two sizes, the issues with edges and low contrast detail stick out like a sore thumb.
I realize that many people don't see this ... but train yourself to look for this kind oft thing ... it won't be long before you see the kind of improvements that make a big difference in your image's ability to convey 3 dimensions.
Autumn Leaves -- Clinging to Life
One of my neighbours a couple of blocks away has a beautiful Maple tree in his front yard. Every time I drove by in the last week or so I remarked to myself that I really needed to try to capture the amazing pastoral scene ....
Of course, a tree like that in the middle of a field on a sunny day could make for an award-winning image, while a shot of someone's front yard on a cloudy day (that's about all we've had for weeks) makes for a documentary image. *sigh* ...
Still, worth a shot. I popped over at lunch one day last week for a few minutes, carrying the big lenses (Nikon 300mm F4 AFS and Tamron 180mm F3.5 MACRO) and my little Fuji F70EXR. The first thing I did was set up the tripod on a sidewalk across from his side yard (he lives on a corner, which helps with angles.) Obviously, I had to avoid too much clutter and preferably take the car parked across the street out of the equation.
I set the F70EXR first to about 180 then 270 and chose to shoot the Tamron. 300mm would be simply too much. I was able, however, to also capture some nice images with the Fuji compact.
I started with this shot from the Fuji ... it shows the traditional weakness of small sensor cameras, the inability to isolate your subject ... the Blue Spruce across the street is just as sharp as the wonderful Maple. But at least you can see what I was working with.
I was able to isolate the hanging part of the tree without a too-distracting background.
And to show the lawn, which was perfectly blanketed by lovely leaves ...
I then switched to the D300 and the Tamron for a while ... here, I show the front yard without including the neighbour's yard as a sharp detail ...
A better angle for the Tamron ...
An isolation shot of the tree and its lower branches ...
A detail shot of one sprig with the rest of the tree thrown completely out of focus ... this is why I love dSLR shooting ...
At this point, I'd had my fill of the tree itself and decided to turn my attention to the leaves on the ground. Any leaf that was upside down was covered with beautiful, evenly-spaced, large water droplets. Really, really pretty.
My Feisol 3471 tripod can lay almost flat and allow the cam to point straight down ... for some reason, I forgot to capture that interesting detail shot. Another time, I suppose.
Meanwhile, I started shooting the leaves individually and in small groups.
I also captured the leaves with the Fuji F70EXR, which means hand holding the cam right above the leaves when shot wide or about 3 feet away on full tele ...
Obviously, I was enamored with the water droplets ... but I also love the details in the leaves.
This last shot is incredibly sharp ... so I thought I'd see what sort of detail I could extract with Topaz Adjust 3 ...
And I was done ... but before leaving, I grabbed a couple of images around that rock in the yard with the Fuji ... I thought these were kind of nice ...
The snow will arrive soon here, but I appreciate the Maple tree's ability to hang on very late into the season ... it means we have lovely colors around the neighbourhood right up until the snow gives us a completely different look ...
Of course, a tree like that in the middle of a field on a sunny day could make for an award-winning image, while a shot of someone's front yard on a cloudy day (that's about all we've had for weeks) makes for a documentary image. *sigh* ...
Still, worth a shot. I popped over at lunch one day last week for a few minutes, carrying the big lenses (Nikon 300mm F4 AFS and Tamron 180mm F3.5 MACRO) and my little Fuji F70EXR. The first thing I did was set up the tripod on a sidewalk across from his side yard (he lives on a corner, which helps with angles.) Obviously, I had to avoid too much clutter and preferably take the car parked across the street out of the equation.
I set the F70EXR first to about 180 then 270 and chose to shoot the Tamron. 300mm would be simply too much. I was able, however, to also capture some nice images with the Fuji compact.
I started with this shot from the Fuji ... it shows the traditional weakness of small sensor cameras, the inability to isolate your subject ... the Blue Spruce across the street is just as sharp as the wonderful Maple. But at least you can see what I was working with.
I was able to isolate the hanging part of the tree without a too-distracting background.
And to show the lawn, which was perfectly blanketed by lovely leaves ...
I then switched to the D300 and the Tamron for a while ... here, I show the front yard without including the neighbour's yard as a sharp detail ...
A better angle for the Tamron ...
An isolation shot of the tree and its lower branches ...
A detail shot of one sprig with the rest of the tree thrown completely out of focus ... this is why I love dSLR shooting ...
At this point, I'd had my fill of the tree itself and decided to turn my attention to the leaves on the ground. Any leaf that was upside down was covered with beautiful, evenly-spaced, large water droplets. Really, really pretty.
My Feisol 3471 tripod can lay almost flat and allow the cam to point straight down ... for some reason, I forgot to capture that interesting detail shot. Another time, I suppose.
Meanwhile, I started shooting the leaves individually and in small groups.
I also captured the leaves with the Fuji F70EXR, which means hand holding the cam right above the leaves when shot wide or about 3 feet away on full tele ...
Obviously, I was enamored with the water droplets ... but I also love the details in the leaves.
This last shot is incredibly sharp ... so I thought I'd see what sort of detail I could extract with Topaz Adjust 3 ...
And I was done ... but before leaving, I grabbed a couple of images around that rock in the yard with the Fuji ... I thought these were kind of nice ...
The snow will arrive soon here, but I appreciate the Maple tree's ability to hang on very late into the season ... it means we have lovely colors around the neighbourhood right up until the snow gives us a completely different look ...
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Images for Ashley's Web Site
I was asked to provide a selection of images for Ashley's web site, and that caused me to go through the 1800 images with a quick pass to select images that represented his work, his style and his invention (the scissors he uses) very well. Obviously, I also sent a second selection of the images from my first post on his work.
I started by working in color and sent a few emails to Crombie for some guidance as to the appropriate sort of images to select. Turns out I kind of had it wrong at first, thinking that a series of images of the cut would be useful.
For example ... the beginning ... one of the very first images I got, after her wash but before he started doing any serious cutting.
Very early on ...
An hour in or so ...
And he continues ...
I like this shot ...
And this was the last one I processed fully before seeking guidance over email ...
It turned out that the cut was entirely secondary to Ashley himself and his patented scissors. This made perfect sense to me and I restarted my search for images, discarding some I had already processed. I also ran into color problems over and over ... no cyan on his head because of the overhead lights and so on ... after speaking with Crombie on the phone, I went with black and white again.
I first went through the already processed group to find the few that met the new criteria. I felt that these four made the grade ... and note that in these shots the model (Amanda) is supposed to be secondary, although that is sometimes difficult to convey.
And now for the new shots processed only to black and white ...
One thing that Crombie noted to me when he saw these is that Ashley needs to dominate the image, and I found that many of my images were of the work and few were of the man. Something to keep in mind next time.
Some showing his concentration while cutting ... I chose several variations because of the change in Amanda's expression ... the web designer and Ashley may have very specific goals for how they want the mood of his work conveyed ...
Facing the big north window in case they want a brighter backgrop somewhere.
Combing her out with a great big smile ...
And with a more introspective look ...
A detail shot of his hands and body position when working low ...
A shot of his hands pinching the hair for some trimming ... his face slightly out of focus but prominent.
A shot of the scissors in use ...
A nice shot of Ashley himself ...
A nice isolation shot of the scissors ... obviously marred by cutting them off slightly. But since there was no other like this, I thought perhaps the shot would have some value ...
A very promionent placement of the scissors ... clearly showing their unique design ...
A crop from the same image ... I only cropped three times in the entire series ... this is one of them ...
Another image of the scissors in use ...
A superb image of Ashley with the scissors in action ...
And again working with the scissors ...
Nice isolation shot ... I believe that we posed this one (I eventually realized that I needed to find out what his trademark was and that was when I heard about the scissors and the patent ...)
Another shot posed I believe ...
If this was posed, it was the last one ... but I think this is live again ... I really like how Ashley himself frames the scissors ...
Detail shot of scissors in hand with the other punching the hair tightly ...
And when it was all over, I got Amanda to pose for some shots in the window area ... this image best shows the cut, and it's a beauty ... as is the model.
I have hundreds of excellent images form the shoot ... many of Amanda, which I will try to cull later on for a series just on her ... meanwhile, these had a specific purpose in mind and so are not representative of all stages of the cut. But they are a pretty good sampling and I must admit that I like processing both types of images from the compact and the dSLR. But I truly love the way the background goes smoothly out of focus with the dSLR .... there is simply no contest in how the final images look ... to me at least.
I started by working in color and sent a few emails to Crombie for some guidance as to the appropriate sort of images to select. Turns out I kind of had it wrong at first, thinking that a series of images of the cut would be useful.
For example ... the beginning ... one of the very first images I got, after her wash but before he started doing any serious cutting.
Very early on ...
An hour in or so ...
And he continues ...
I like this shot ...
And this was the last one I processed fully before seeking guidance over email ...
It turned out that the cut was entirely secondary to Ashley himself and his patented scissors. This made perfect sense to me and I restarted my search for images, discarding some I had already processed. I also ran into color problems over and over ... no cyan on his head because of the overhead lights and so on ... after speaking with Crombie on the phone, I went with black and white again.
I first went through the already processed group to find the few that met the new criteria. I felt that these four made the grade ... and note that in these shots the model (Amanda) is supposed to be secondary, although that is sometimes difficult to convey.
And now for the new shots processed only to black and white ...
One thing that Crombie noted to me when he saw these is that Ashley needs to dominate the image, and I found that many of my images were of the work and few were of the man. Something to keep in mind next time.
Some showing his concentration while cutting ... I chose several variations because of the change in Amanda's expression ... the web designer and Ashley may have very specific goals for how they want the mood of his work conveyed ...
Facing the big north window in case they want a brighter backgrop somewhere.
Combing her out with a great big smile ...
And with a more introspective look ...
A detail shot of his hands and body position when working low ...
A shot of his hands pinching the hair for some trimming ... his face slightly out of focus but prominent.
A shot of the scissors in use ...
A nice shot of Ashley himself ...
A nice isolation shot of the scissors ... obviously marred by cutting them off slightly. But since there was no other like this, I thought perhaps the shot would have some value ...
A very promionent placement of the scissors ... clearly showing their unique design ...
A crop from the same image ... I only cropped three times in the entire series ... this is one of them ...
Another image of the scissors in use ...
A superb image of Ashley with the scissors in action ...
And again working with the scissors ...
Nice isolation shot ... I believe that we posed this one (I eventually realized that I needed to find out what his trademark was and that was when I heard about the scissors and the patent ...)
Another shot posed I believe ...
If this was posed, it was the last one ... but I think this is live again ... I really like how Ashley himself frames the scissors ...
Detail shot of scissors in hand with the other punching the hair tightly ...
And when it was all over, I got Amanda to pose for some shots in the window area ... this image best shows the cut, and it's a beauty ... as is the model.
I have hundreds of excellent images form the shoot ... many of Amanda, which I will try to cull later on for a series just on her ... meanwhile, these had a specific purpose in mind and so are not representative of all stages of the cut. But they are a pretty good sampling and I must admit that I like processing both types of images from the compact and the dSLR. But I truly love the way the background goes smoothly out of focus with the dSLR .... there is simply no contest in how the final images look ... to me at least.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)